Neighborhood Shut Down, Two Attackers Loose

Denver police went national tonight hoping someone in the public or a prison in another state would be able to lead them to Brent Brents, a recently released sexual offender suspected of sexually assaulting a grandmother and two young girls the other night in a neighborhood near downtown Denver. He's suspected of five assaults on women this week--all within a mile or so of each other.

Tonight, they thought he struck again. When police got word of an assault one block from the site of the last attack, 100 of them surrounded the home. Now, the entire neighborhood is sealed off. But, [edit: they don't know if]it's the same guy.

Tonight's guy was with a woman and fled half naked in the attacked woman's car--a gray 2004 Mazda 6 sedan with license plate 980 KLS. The woman he attacked is in the hospital. No clear word on her injuries, or whether she was sexually assaulted.

This is my neighborhood, and I'm out of coffee for the morning, but I think I'll stay by the computer and not venture out again this evening. I'd rather just broadcast the car description again, gray 2004 Mazda 6 sedan with license plate 980 KLS. If you see it, call 911.

Update: Now "200 officers, working with the FBI and police departments throughout Colorado's metro areas, are checking out up to 400 tips." There's a $40,000. reward. This report says the guy was naked when he ran out of the last house and took off in the car with his woman companion. And it might be Brent Brents after all.

Update: 10:30 pm. Haven't found him or the car yet. Seems like Brent is the only one they are looking for.

Brents was caught by Glenwood Springs police after a short pursuit Friday night. He was driving a Mazda 6, the vehicle taken from the victim in the latest attack. Glenwood Police say there was a woman with Brents. Her relationship to him is unknown at this time.

The Colorado Department of Transportation said Denver Police contacted them a short time ago and said they could stop flashing the highway signs asking motorists to be on the lookout for the missing Mazda.

Update: Saturday morning: Here's the story of the capture. Brents is on his way to Denver now, in police custody. Bail on one of the counts is set at $25 million. They found him by tracking the latest victim's cell phone, which he had stolen from her, up I-70 into the mountains. They notified Garfield County Sheriffs he was headed their way and after a short chase in Glenwood Springs that ended with Brents crashing the car into a police car, they nabbed him. As to his female companion, police aren't saying whether she's a kidnap victim or a friend, but she's in protective custody and injured, so I suspect the latter former.

Even on Friday night when a woman reported the attack at 10th and Marion, police weren't sure if they were searching for Brents or some other suspect.

"We started out thinking that it was not Brents, then we thought it was, and then we thought it wasn't, so we went back and forth on that. And we were still questioning that whole fact until Garfield County called and said they had a good ID on the suspect," Whitman said. "We continued to look for a car just like it was a felon that was fleeing an area of a crime with the hopes that it was actually Brents, and of course, it turned out to be that way."

Are you also getting the helicopters out for the downtown NBA All Star goings on? I am. They go around in a circle for hours...
Downtown is like a police state, with multiple cop cars on every block, mostly for traffic control, but with 30,000 expected for the weekend, guess they aren't taking any chances.
Definitely not the time to drink and drive in Denver.

Reminds me of the surreal day when I got stuck in a parking lot called I-405 in L.A. about a decade ago. And then I noticed there was absolutely NO traffic going in the other direction. Helicopters soon approached, an overflowing freakshow crowd of cheering onlookers had quickly filled the overpass, and then Al Cowlings cruised past in the White Bronco sped past with O.J. in the back seat (for the record, I saw the Juice's knee). Along with the day the Rodney King riots got a block away from my sh*thole apartment off Franklin.
Surreal and you can't look away.
Hope they find this creep too, obviously.

My other half took the bus to play darts with his dart league on West Colfax. He said the bus had to go around the block four times before it could get over in the left lane and turn.
And another note, 9News just said that the cops have him cornered somewhere, but I haven;t heard anything on the scanner yet.

They seem to have headed North.
Doesn't sound like a false alarm on the shooting, they just sent detectives to St. Joe's to interview a walk-in GSW.
Additionally, someone just found a gun in the alley at 1021 E 17th.

And they just pulled over a car load of "indiginous polulation" (Indians?) at Park and I-25 that was driving around with the rear window shot out. So I'm guessing the shooting wasn't rapist related. Sounds more gang related.

The founder of the guardian angels here, Sebastian Metz, used to be my next door neighbor. I bet his guys are busy tonight. I'll be curious to hear what he says next time I run into him at Queen Soopers.

Sounds like from the scanner they have somebody surrounded in a shed at 25th & Lafayette, but there's confusion as to whether it's Brent Brents related or the shooting. Sounds like our poor DPD is stretched pretty thin with the NBA stuff going on and all this.

Craig (the other half) was downtown waiting for the bus on the way home where there was a rollover crash at 16th & Welton where the driver took off running from the cops, and at least one of the passengers was DOA. When he got on the bus, someone got on and started harassing the driver, so the driver hit the panic button and pushed the guy out. The cops were right there and took him down after he pulled a concealed gun.
What a night!

I know this sound silly to bring up now, but can we have some better research into how common it is for this type of offender to re-offend in such a spectacular fashion. I think the re-offend rate is high enough, if I can recall properly. I'm real squeamish about allowing these guys out too early. But if guilty, I'm all for putting away Mr. B for life. No one should be allowed to terrorize a community like that, at least a non professional politico that is. [That's almost a joke people!]

MD - Let's see. They are chasing a guy who has assaulted a woman and stolen her car..... and you are worrying about a warrant?
(think of ESPN)
g i v e m e a b r e a k
That is truly due process run amok.
From a technical view, everyone's cellphone transmits a signal at all times that is picked up by a cell site to tell the network where the cellphone is located, so if someone calls, they can be located and called from the correct cell site and its antenna. The cell sites have "names."
So, you start off at cellsite A. As you drive (or walk) away from A, sooner or later you drop away from A, too weak a signal, and are picked up by B, C, D, etc. (It happens too fast for you to hear.) So the network knows where you are at, at least as far`as to the cell site. And, since cell sites are located along interstates, it would be easy to track you.
It's been a while since I paid a lot of attention to the cell network, so I don't know if they have deployed the interface, software, etc., to actually make the information easily and rapidly available, but the technology is definitely there.

PPJ/et.al. - Almost all new cell phones are equipped with what is called E-911 which, along with GPRS, allows emergency services to locate your phone within a few meters.
If you have a GPRS phone and are in the right kind of digital cell you can go onto a mapping website and see your exact location.
Garmin are not amused, I am sure.
-C

Cliff - True, but I had no idea as to his phone type. I'm guessing it was plain vanilla.
Plus I think you have to dial 911 from the phone to activate the service, though there probably is a way to trigger it from another source.
Do you remember when it was speculated that everyone flushing their commodes during super bowl half time would cause a massive failure of the sewer system?
And then there was Y2K, also known as the End of Civilization...

PPJ - I know how it works technically, I was just wondering what TL's opinion was on how it works *legally*. I imagine you don't live in our neighborhood--this is the place where if the police don't agree with you politically they keep spy files on you and track your movements and associations. The Denver Police have a long history of abuses of power, starting in the days of Old West justice, going through the 1920's when they were in the pocket of the KKK, and all the way up to today.
As I said in this case I imagine it was the victim's consent that allowed them to track the cell phone, and it's great that they did.
This guy has been terrorizing the neighborhood by night while being a community activist by day working at the homeless advocacy newspaper, The Denver Voice. He's a textbook sexual predator, his prey being anyone who he could physically overpower regardless of gender or age.
I've sat next to him on the bus several times. He would get on the 15 at Auraria campus (where he was no doubt trolling for college students to rape) around 2:30 and get off at Downing street. Freaky. I reported it to RTD so they can pull the security camera tapes if necessary.
I'm so glad he's off the streets.

TL,
I am not sure of her phone but most newer ones (made in the past couple of years) have GPS devies built in. People can check their phones by looking at them if they have a ircular asterik looking thing then it is GPS enabled.

It's not necessarily a tracking device, in this case I believe there was no GPS unit involved.
Just having the phone turned on is all it takes-- every phone is uniquely serialized and stays in constant contact with the nearest cell towers. The phone company always knows where your phone is--that's how they make it ring when somebody calls you.
In this case they triangulated the location of the cell phone, and yes they did need a wire tap warrant. I understand Mitch Morrissey personally sought the warrants and signed the paperwork as needed. I also understand that the cell phone did not belong to the latest victim, but one of the previous victims, so it was very lucky that the phone still had enough battery to stay turned on.